When Bristol City scored after just 6 minutes yesterday, that feeling of dread that we often get when facing the Robins at Craven Cottage was quick to enter my head. They were on a five game winning streak at the Cottage and games against them in the capital had quickly become ones to not look forward to. But yesterday we finally put those demons to bed with a, quite frankly, ridiculous first half display. What a performance from Marco Silva’s men. Both individually and as a team Fulham were head and shoulders above City and with Bournemouth losing earlier in the day to Luton Town, this result was possibly one of the most important of the season so far. With a game in hand still to come, Fulham are back at the top of the table and have a big chance to consolidate that position on Tuesday night against Birmingham.

There are so many positives to take from yesterday, and one or two negatives defensively, but I’ve picked out two things to look at from our performance yesterday and our season in general.

1. Set piece goals galore –

Anyone who knows me will know that I love a good stat. Yesterday we scored another two goals from corners taking our tally for the season in the league so far to 13. It wasn’t long ago when Fulham rarely scored from a set piece, particularly corners, so to have 13 already this year shows a considerable change in our threat levels in that area. Now you could point out that we are scoring a heap load of goals this year, so it understandable that we are scoring more from set pieces because of that. By the law of averages, the more goals we score, the more that should be set pieces etc etc, so let’s look at the breakdown of how we are scoring our goals, rather than just the amount.

Our 13 goals from set pieces this season accounts for 20.3% of our goals. One whole fifth of our goals are from corners or free kicks. Last season our 4 set piece goals  accounted for 14.8%, the year before that it was 17.3%. Then if we go back to the year we went up under Slavisa Jokanovic in 2018, our 9 set piece goals that season only accounted for 11.3% of our goals that season. We already have 4 more this season in about half the games. This is important because it shows that where our goals are coming from this season is much more spread out than in previous seasons. When we went up under Slav we scored 79 goals and 75.9% came from open play. While this was great at the time, we were never going to be able to replicate anything like that in the Premier League. Set pieces are incredibly important for teams in any underdog position. We won’t get as many open play goals if we go up next season, so we have to be able to take advantage of any dead ball situation around the box. It’s great for this season, but I’d like to think that our ability to score from set pieces will help us if we are playing our football in the Premier League next season.

And one more thing that I noticed which I just found quite funny, was that during our two full seasons under Scott Parker we scored just 2 goals on the counter attack in the league. Hashtag Parkerball.

• Arise, Sir Neeskens Kebano

There have been a multitude of players playing the best football of their careers this season at Fulham. Mitrovic has been sensational, Harry Wilson has already reached double figures for assists alongside his 8 goals so far and Marek Rodak has perhaps finally claimed that number one spot as his own. But I’m going to pick out Neeskens Kebano for some extra praise because this is surely the best he has ever been for us. Kebano has always been a bit of a fans favourite at Fulham since his signing back in 2016, but not necessarily for his ability. He was always fun to watch, but often wasn’t seen as someone who could really own that winger spot. And when he was loaned out under Parker last season, you could have been forgiven for thinking that his time at the club was coming to an end. But fast forward one year and Kebano is now undeniably one of the first names on the team sheet. I reckon that he has massively benefitted from playing under the guidance of Luis Boa Morte as he has improved his finishing as well as his all around play. This has been his most fruitful season at Fulham with his seven goals and five assists so far. His second goal yesterday was outrageous. Everything from the take down, the turning the defender to the finish was superb. He is playing with a lot of confidence as well and it’s just so brilliant to see. He always plays with a smile on his face, and I hope he ends his career with us. What a guy.

All in all, Fulham have been incredibly fun to watch this year but let’s not forget that we have another full half of the season to go. The Championship is generally the hardest league to call so let’s enjoy the moment, but not get too far ahead of ourselves. Roll on Birmingham.

#COYW